According to a spokesperson for the former president, Barack Obama never ordered the tapping of Donald Trump's phone . 

In a series of tweets, the sitting president claimed his predecessor ordered a wire tap on Trump Tower last October.

President Trump has compared the allegations to the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

However this evening a spokesman said neither Obama nor White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen and said any suggestion is otherwise false.

The spokesperson said "A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice."

"As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen."